Internet use, happiness, social support and introversion: A more fine grained analysis of person variables and internet activity

The longitudinal associations between perceived importance of the internet and depressive symptoms among a sample of Chinese adults

Objective

The aim of this study is to examine the extent to which individuals' cognitive evaluation of the importance of the Internet is associated with depressive symptoms, and in what ways.

Methods

This study utilized a sample of 4,100 participants from the fourth (2016), fifth (2018), and sixth (2020) waves of the China Family Panel Studies. Structural equation modeling was employed for data analysis.

Result

The findings of this study reveal that individuals' cognitive evaluation of the importance of the Internet in 2016 was positively linked with the frequency of Internet use and subjective socioeconomic status in 2018. Furthermore, the frequency of Internet use and subjective socioeconomic status in 2018 were found to be negatively associated with depressive symptoms in 2020. These results indicate that the perceived importance of the Internet has an indirect effect on depressive symptoms through the identified pathway.

Conclusion

The present findings contribute to the existing literature by highlighting the importance of individuals' perceived importance of the internet as a significant factor that influences depressive symptoms. The results suggest that policy makers should take actions to increase public awareness of the importance of the Internet in the digital era, and to ensure equitable access to the internet, thus facilitating convenient internet use and helping individuals adapt to the digital age.

Internet Use and the Happiness of Rural Residents: The Role of Education and Health

The rapid development of the Internet in China in recent years has greatly penetrated into all aspects of people's lives and production. In rural areas of China, little is known from previous studies about the relationship between the Internet and happiness. Based on data from the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) collected in 2016 and 2018, this study investigates the impact of the Internet use on the happiness of rural residents and its mechanism. The results show that, first, the fixed-effects model indicates that the Internet significantly increases the happiness of rural residents. Second, the multiple mediating effects analysis shows that Internet use can improve rural residents' happiness by promoting the household education human capital. To be more specific, excessive Internet use leads to lower levels of household health human capital. However, a lower level of health does not necessarily bring about a lower level of happiness. In this paper, the mediating effects of household education human capital and household health human capital are 17.8% and 9.5%, respectively. Third, the heterogeneity analysis found that there was a significant positive correlation between Internet use and rural residents' happiness in western regions of China, while it is insignificant in the eastern and central regions; for households with a huge labor force, Internet use dramatically improves their happiness by enhancing their household education human capital. Education and health have different roles to play in terms of the happiness of rural residents. Therefore, this suggests that the physical and psychological health of rural residents should be taken into account when the Internet strategies to improve general well-being are under development.

Challenging social media threats using collective well-being-aware recommendation algorithms and an educational virtual companion

Social media have become an integral part of our lives, expanding our interlinking capabilities to new levels. There is plenty to be said about their positive effects. On the other hand, however, some serious negative implications of social media have been repeatedly highlighted in recent years, pointing at various threats to society and its more vulnerable members, such as teenagers, in particular, ranging from much-discussed problems such as digital addiction and polarization to manipulative influences of algorithms and further to more teenager-specific issues (e.g., body stereotyping). The impact of social media-both at an individual and societal level-is characterized by the complex interplay between the users' interactions and the intelligent components of the platform. Thus, users' understanding of social media mechanisms plays a determinant role. We thus propose a theoretical framework based on an adaptive "Social Media Virtual Companion" for educating and supporting an entire community, teenage students, to interact in social media environments in order to achieve desirable conditions, defined in terms of a community-specific and participatory designed measure of Collective Well-Being (CWB). This Companion combines automatic processing with expert intervention and guidance. The virtual Companion will be powered by a Recommender System (CWB-RS) that will optimize a CWB metric instead of engagement or platform profit, which currently largely drives recommender systems thereby disregarding any societal collateral effect. CWB-RS will optimize CWB both in the short term by balancing the level of social media threats the users are exposed to, and in the long term by adopting an Intelligent Tutor System role and enabling adaptive and personalized sequencing of playful learning activities. We put an emphasis on experts and educators in the educationally managed social media community of the Companion. They play five key roles: (a) use the Companion in classroom-based educational activities; (b) guide the definition of the CWB; (c) provide a hierarchical structure of learning strategies, objectives and activities that will support and contain the adaptive sequencing algorithms of the CWB-RS based on hierarchical reinforcement learning; (d) act as moderators of direct conflicts between the members of the community; and, finally, (e) monitor and address ethical and educational issues that are beyond the intelligent agent's competence and control. This framework offers a possible approach to understanding how to design social media systems and embedded educational interventions that favor a more healthy and positive society. Preliminary results on the performance of the Companion's components and studies of the educational and psychological underlying principles are presented.

The impact of internet use on health status among older adults in China: The mediating role of social support

Background

With the popularization of the Internet, the use of the Internet is becoming more and more important in the daily life of older adults. However, previous research mainly focuses on Internet use and health in general, and the mechanism of this effect remains to be studied. To bridge this gap, this study aims to explore the mediational effects of social support between Internet use and health among older adults in China.

Methods

The data used in this article are from the 2021 Chinese General Social Survey (CGSS). Social support is divided into two aspects and four dimensions: informal social support (relatives support, friends support, neighbors support) and formal social support (social insurance). This article uses the nested multivariate OLS regression models to analyze the impact of Internet use on health. Furthermore, Finally, SPSS macro PROCESS is applied to test their mediation effects.

Results

Informal social support positively influenced the health status among older adults, while formal social support did not. Among the three types of informal social support, relatives support and friends support significantly affected health status among Chinese older adults. Regarding social support differences between urban and rural areas, it was found that relatives support is a positively significant factor for rural older adults, while friends support is significant for urban older adults.

Conclusions

Since Internet use has many ways of impacting health status, social support only plays a partial mediating role in this study. It recommends that the government should take compelling measures to encourage and promote the use of the Internet among older adults and obtain various social support to improve their health status.

How Does Social Comparison Influence Chinese Adolescents’ Flourishing through Short Videos?

Flourishing indicates one’s emotional status and functioning level and is essential for adolescents’ further development. Adolescents’ social media use has been rising, with various potential effects on their development. Therefore, in this study, we shifted the emphasis from a traditional deficit-based approach to a strength-based approach by exploring how social comparison and social media usage influence Chinese adolescents’ flourishing. Altogether, 786 Chinese adolescents aged 12–19 years completed a self-report questionnaire. The results indicate that (1) both social media social comparison of ability (SCA) and social media social comparison of opinion (SCO) have no significant effect on Chinese adolescents’ flourishing; (2) integration into social routine has a positive indirect effect on the relationship between social media social comparison and flourishing; and (3) social integration and emotional connection negatively affect the relationship between social media social comparison and flourishing. These findings highlight the interaction between social media social comparison and social media usage. Furthermore, the results of this study clarify that the potentially harmful effect of social media usage on adolescents’ flourishing is not determined by the frequency or time spent on using social media, but how much adolescents are connected to or invested in social media.

Rich Get Richer: Extraversion Statistically Predicts Reduced Internet Addiction through Less Online Anonymity Preference and Extraversion Compensation

Internet addiction may arise from multiple factors and personality tendencies have been previously implicated. Prior studies have found that extraversion may be a protective factor mitigating against internet addiction, yielding a "rich-get-richer" effect. However, few studies have explored how extraversion may influence internet addiction from the perspective of online-offline integration. Drawing on a sample of 428 college students, the current study examined a serial mediation model exploring the underlying mechanisms of how extraversion may statistically predict internet addiction through online-offline integration and antecedent factors. The serial mediation model analyses indicated that extraverted internet users exhibited a weaker preference for online anonymity and less online extraversion compensation, thus formulating a higher level of online-offline integration than introverted individuals, which, in turn, appeared to reduce the risk of internet addiction. In contrast, with regard to specific components of online-offline integration, introverted internet users preferred online anonymity, which reduced their relationship integration and increased their likelihood of internet addiction; similarly, the introverted individuals were also more likely to exhibit an extraversion compensation effect. That is, they were more extraverted on the internet than in general; hence, they had a lower level of self-identity integration, resulting in a greater likelihood of experiencing internet addiction. These results highlight the importance of online-offline integration that may account for personality variations in social and psychological outcomes related to internet use, and suggest a role for online anonymity preference and extraversion compensation in influencing specific components of integration.

Conversational Task Increases Heart Rate Variability of Individuals Susceptible to Perceived Social Isolation

Studies showed that introversion is the strongest personality trait related to perceived social isolation (loneliness), which can predict various complications beyond objective isolation such as living alone. Lonely individuals are more likely to resort to social media for instantaneous comfort, but it is not a perpetual solution. Largely negative implications including poorer interpersonal relationship and depression were reported due to excessive social media usage. Conversational task is an established intervention to improve verbal communication, cognitive and behavioral adaptation among lonely individuals. Despite that behavioral benefits have been reported, it is unclear if they are accompanied by objective benefits underlying physiological changes. Here, we investigate the physiological signals from 28 healthy individuals during a conversational task. Participants were ranked by trait extraversion, where greater introversion is associated with increased susceptibility to perceived social isolation as compared to participants with greater extraversion as controls. We found that introverts had a greater tendency to be neurotic, and these participants also exhibited significant differences in task-related electrodermal activity (EDA), heart rate (HR) and HR variability (HRV) as compared to controls. Notably, resting state HRV among individuals susceptible to perceived loneliness was below the healthy thresholds established in literature. Conversational task with a stranger significantly increased HRV among individuals susceptible to isolation up to levels as seen in controls. Since HRV is also elevated by physical exercise and administration of oxytocin hormone (one form of therapy for behavioral isolation), conversational therapy among introverts could potentially confer physiological benefits to ameliorate social isolation and loneliness. Our findings also suggest that although the recent pandemic has changed how people are interacting typically, we should maintain a healthy dose of social interaction innovatively.

Associations between depressive esymptoms and identity-specific social support among Black men who have sex with men (BMSM) in Baltimore City, Maryland

Introduction

Depression and other adverse mental health outcomes are prevalent among Black men who have sex with men (BMSM). Social support can be protective against symptoms of depression, the effects of which may be amplified by experiences of a shared social identity.

Methods

We explored the associations between BMSM-specific social support and depressive symptoms among a sample of 280 BMSM. We used chi-square and t-tests to examine bivariate associations between social support, depressive symptoms, and key correlates, and logistic regression to adjust the relationship between social support and depressive symptoms.

Results

Most participants reported high (43.2%) or moderate (41.8%) levels of BMSM-specific social support, 38% reported depressive symptoms, and 47.6% were living with HIV. Adjusting for socioeconomic and structural vulnerabilities, health, and involvement in the gay community, high social support was associated with a marginal decrease in the odds of depressive symptoms compared to low social support.

Conclusions

Results indicate that BMSM-specific social support is protective against depressive symptoms even in the context of other socioeconomic and structural vulnerabilities, suggesting that strengths-based interventions focused on building community and mutual support among BMSM may be valuable tools to prevent depression and promote positive mental health outcomes for members of this population.

Spirituality and Social Media: The Search for Support Among Black Men Who Have Sex With Men in Tennessee

Young Black Men Who Have Sex With Men (BMSM) have been the subject of much research focused on health disparities in HIV occurrence, stigma, and mental health. Although such research is important, fewer studies focus on other equally salient areas of their lives such as spirituality, religious practices, and social support. Informed by literature on social support, this research endeavors to better understand these dynamics for a group of young BMSM who reside in a metropolitan city in Tennessee. Focus group results and content analysis uncover themes related to religion and resilience; queering Christianity; and virtual spirituality. Participants expressed an overarching need for support, safe spaces, genuine relationships, and godly instruction, conveyed through traditional Black Church involvement and nontraditional Internet usage. Findings are important for strategic, proactive, cross-generational collaboration with young BMSM to holistically meet their varied needs.

Polar Similars: Using Massive Mobile Dating Data to Predict Synchronization and Similarity in Dating Preferences

Leveraging a massive dataset of over 421 million potential matches between single users on a leading mobile dating application, we were able to identify numerous characteristics of effective matching. Effective matching is defined as the exchange of contact information with the likely intent to meet in person. The characteristics of effective match include alignment of psychological traits (i.e., extroversion), physical traits (i.e., height), personal choices (i.e., desiring the same relationship type), and shared experiences. For nearly all characteristics, the more similar the individuals were, the higher the likelihood was of them finding each other desirable and opting to meet in person. The only exception was introversion, where introverts rarely had an effective match with other introverts. When investigating the preliminary stages of the choice process we looked at the consistency between the choice of men/women, the time it took users to make these binary choices, and the tendency of yes/no decisions. We used a biologically inspired choice model to estimate the decision process and could predict the selection and response time with nearly 60% accuracy. Given that people make their initial selection in no more than 11 s, and ultimately prefer a partner who shares numerous attributes with them, we suggest that users are less selective in their early preferences and gradually, during their conversation, converge onto clusters that share a high degree of similarity in characteristics.

Is it love or loneliness? Exploring the impact of everyday digital technology use on the wellbeing of older adults

Loneliness is a prevalent phenomenon within the older adult population. Previous literature suggests that technology use, specifically internet use, can alleviate loneliness and improve wellbeing. This research study follows 32 people over the age of 65 using a digital technology for six months. A mixed-method approach was used to collect quantitative and qualitative data throughout the time period. The repeated questionnaire measured changes in frequency of use, emotional attachment towards a device, a sense of belonging and perceptions of self-worth, whilst an event-based diary was used to note usages and influences of technology on lifestyle. Results revealed positive relationships between frequency of use and emotional attachment and frequency of use and perceptions of self-worth. There was no significant relationship between frequency of use and a sense of belonging for the aggregate data. There was, however, a negative relationship between emotional attachment towards a device and a sense of belonging, suggesting a fine balance between technology use to improve self-esteem through connections with social networks and an over-dependence on technology that can actually reduce feelings of belonging.

Who Follows eHealth Interventions as Recommended? A Study of Participants' Personal Characteristics From the Experimental Arm of a Randomized Controlled Trial

BACKGROUND

Computer-tailored eHealth interventions to improve health behavior have been demonstrated to be effective and cost-effective if they are used as recommended. However, different subgroups may use the Internet differently, which might also affect intervention use and effectiveness. To date, there is little research available depicting whether adherence to intervention recommendations differs according to personal characteristics.

OBJECTIVE

The aim was to assess which personal characteristics are associated with using an eHealth intervention as recommended.

METHODS

A randomized controlled trial was conducted among a sample of the adult Dutch population (N=1638) testing an intervention aimed at improving 5 healthy lifestyle behaviors: increasing fruit and vegetable consumption, increasing physical activity, reducing alcohol intake, and promoting smoking cessation. Participants were asked to participate in those specific online modules for which they did not meet the national guideline(s) for the respective behavior(s). Participants who started with fewer than the recommended number of modules of the intervention were defined as users who did not follow the intervention recommendation.

RESULTS

The fewer modules recommended to participants, the better participants adhered to the intervention modules. Following the intervention recommendation increased when participants were older (χ(2)1=39.8, P<.001), female (χ(2)1=15.8, P<.001), unemployed (χ(2)1=7.9, P=.003), ill (χ(2)1=4.5, P=.02), or in a relationship (χ(2)1=7.8, P=.003). No significant relevant differences were found between groups with different levels of education, incomes, or quality of life.

CONCLUSION

Our findings indicate that eHealth interventions were used differently by subgroups. The more frequent as-recommended intervention use by unemployed, older, and ill participants may be an indication that these eHealth interventions are attractive to people with a greater need for health care information. Further research is necessary to make intervention use more attractive for people with unhealthy lifestyle patterns.

Loneliness, self-esteem, and life satisfaction as predictors of Internet addiction: a cross-sectional study among Turkish university students

This study investigated the relationship among loneliness, self-esteem, life satisfaction, and Internet addiction. Participants were 384 university students (114 males, 270 females) from 18 to 24 years old from the faculty of education in Turkey. The Internet Addiction, UCLA Loneliness, Self-esteem, and Life Satisfaction scales were distributed to about 1000 university students, and 38.4% completed the survey (see Appendix A and B). It was found that loneliness, self-esteem, and life satisfaction explained 38% of the total variance in Internet addiction. Loneliness was the most important variable associated with Internet addiction and its subscales. Loneliness and self-esteem together explained time-management problems and interpersonal and health problems while loneliness, self-esteem, and life satisfaction together explained only the interpersonal and health problems subscales.